


The night was all you had

by chiapslock



Series: Shiro Week 2017 [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (consider this a leverage!AU of sort), Allurance if you squint, Alternative Universe - Thieves, M/M, alternative universe, for good reasons, team Voltron here to kick ass and break the law
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2019-02-05 22:12:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12803481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiapslock/pseuds/chiapslock
Summary: The detective looks at Shiro, cuffed to the table, and asks, "Care to share with us why we found you inside of Zarkon's house the night the Black Bayard goes missing?"Shiro just smiles.-When Shiro and Allura device a plan to take revenge on the one man that ruined their life, Shiro knew it could end up with him in jail, or worse. After all, this is what happens when you involve yourself in a band of thieves.





	The night was all you had

**Author's Note:**

> THIS WEEK IT'S KILLING ME. BUT HERE. HAVE THIS.  
> This was supposed to be short. VERY SHORT.  
> :')
> 
> All the thanks to Acier and Lucia who helped me fix the mistakes since I'm tired and haven't slept in like 5 days. You guys are a blessing.
> 
> Written for Shiro Week 2017; Day 4 - Black Bayard

Shiro looks at the cuff on his only wrist and at the barren room he's been kept in for the past ten minutes. It's a tactic to stall, he knows it very well, they are probably trying to stress him out while they do their research on him. It's not going to be difficult. Shiro's background and motive are public domain, one of the greatest scandals and tragedies of the last ten years.

His existence, however, had probably been forgotten, removed from the minds of the people like most tragedies. He remembers receiving a lot of attention, just after the incident, when he was one of the last survivors of the "Altea disaster".

Now, after four years, Shiro is but a ghost of a memory.

He counts down the time in his head. It’s not going to be long before they storm in and try to make him talk. They have him at the scene of the crime, but they don’t have anything to tie him to the stolen diamond if he doesn’t confess.

Yet even without concrete proof, he has been caught trespassing in the house of a multi-millionaire while his most valuable possession was in the midst of being stolen. It's not difficult to jump to conclusions.

Shiro is still looking at his singular cuff, tied to a bar in the middle of the table, when the door finally opens and a detective enters the room. He has a file in his hands, and he looks confident that he's going to make an arrest today.

"So, Takashi Shirogane," the man says, sitting down, "a highly decorated soldier. The way I figure it, you were screwed over by Altea Corp, but since that place was shut down after the incident you needed an outlet for your revenge." The detective talks slowly, and he keeps looking at Shiro, like he's telling him to jump in and interrupt him at any time.

Shiro just watches him, silently.

"What we don't get is why you went after Zarkon. He left Altea Corp before the accident. He tried to warn the people affected and the general public, and he has been supporting survivors of the toxin ever since. You still receive his money," the detective looks at his file and takes a copy of Shiro's financial records. Shiro knows all of this, he lives it every single day. "Care to share with us why we found you inside Zarkon's house the very night the Black Bayard goes missing?"

Shiro adjusts his posture and smiles.

 

◆

 

Shiro's story, at least the important part, starts on a hot day, after Matt took one of the newly grown tomatoes and handed it to him with a smile.

Matt had been proud that day, holding up that little tomato and repeating, for the millionth time that day, that this was why he had become a scientist. The little tomato he held was living proof of the success of their project, a manufactured form of fertilizer that could rejuvenate agricultural soil that had been made infertile by some of the aggressive agricultural methods used in the past. An incredible invention that could help in overcoming world hunger and offer a better  
possibility of life for a lot of people.

Altea Corp had developed this miraculous fertilizer from scratch, utilizing the incredible minds of Samuel and Matthew Holt and thanks to the generosity of one of its CEO.

A week later almost the entire village and all the scientists sent to implement distribution were dead. Shiro had lost an arm to the toxin, the gangrene too fast to save the limb. They said thatthere was something wrong with the formula of the fertilizer,,that there was an adverse reaction when it mixed with the soil, and the result had poisoned the food, the earth, the water.

Shiro is one of the few survivors left , but sometimes he thinks he died too, and that no one had told him yet.

 

 

Almost a year passes before he gets approached by a woman. He recognizes her the moment she sits in front of him, in a shady bar that Shiro keeps going to because they serve alcohol and don't ask too many questions.

Allura, the daughter of the late CEO of Altea Corp, looks entirely too composed for the place they are at. She looks like someone with money, someone who is an easy target for the petty thieves and general scumbags that circle around the bar.

Shiro should hate her, but he doesn't.

"What are you doing here?" he asks, a little rougher that he had meant.

He doesn't know what she could want from him; he hadn't taken part in the lawsuit against Altea Corp, and he mostly gets by drinking away the money that Galra—the company created by Zarkon, Alfor’s previous partner in business—had set up for the victims of the tragedy.

"I need help," Allura tells him, sipping from her glass. She seems to be drinking wine, and Shiro isn't sure where she had actually found it, because he doesn't think there’s any to be found for miles.

"I can't help you," he tells her, truthfully. Once, he could have , but these days Shiro isn't even sure if he can help himself.

She looks at him, studies him like he’s a project she intends to pick apart and build again. A second passes before she moves, reaching into her bag and taking a file. She lets it slide acrossthe table and it stops when it collides with Shiro's drink. "You read that, and then answer me again.."

Allura doesn't have many tells, even if she appears to be a regular High Society Princess. She has been stoic ever since she sat down in the chair in front of him. It makes difficult for Shiro to judge her, understand what he’s getting himself into. She still hasn’t shown any weakness.

She seems to be determined, but most of all: she appears to be confident.

He takes the file and opens it carelessly. Shiro doesn't believe anything written inside there could ever make a difference in his life or his decision, but he makes a point of reading it anyway.

After a couple of pages, he looks up at her. "What assures me you're not just trying to take your revenge and setting up your only competitor all in one go?"

Allura shrugs and sips her wine. "Nothing, I guess. But you know the story didn't make sense."

Shiro did. Just after the accident, when he had finally been well enough to have coherent thoughts, he had read the official story that was going around in the media.

Zarkon, Alfor's ex-partner in business, had tried to warn people when he had left the company. He had said that Alfor's unethical refusal of testing the fertilizer had been the thing that had made Zarkon leave Altea Corp to create his own business.

"In his haste to create the product and deliver it for free, Alfor has skipped over rounds of testing that are necessary in an undertaking of this magnitude," Zarkon had said once, in an interview, "putting the life of so many people at risk. The costs were already a heavy burden for one single project, a further delay for extended testing would have caused a massive loss in capital. My ex-partner decided to go ahead and distribute the product anyway."

Shiro, even while bedridden and under shock, had thought that it smelled like bullshit. He remembers Matt and Doctor Holt, working day and night to perfect the formula. He remembers Matt telling him that saving people was all he wanted to do.

But Matt was dead and Shiro didn't know what to believe anymore.

The file Allura gives him tells another story: Zarkon had fought with Alfor over the idea of privatizing the formula; when Alfor had refused categorically, Zarkon had left Altea. He had stolen the formula and sabotaged the one batch ready for delivery, all in order to discredit his ex-business partner.  Now, Zarkon sells the fertilizer formula to the highest bidder, and has developed a controlled version of the toxin that had been created the day of the Altea Disaster.

Shiro doesn't know what to believe anymore.

He thinks about Matt, smiling under the hot sun. He thinks about Doctor Holt, playing with the little kids in the village. He thinks about the families that have lost their lives.

Shiro drinks the rest of his scotch and then nods. "Fine. I'm in."

 

 

Allura tells him that all the evidence she has managed to gatherare circumstantial at best and if they really want to nail Zarkon's coffin, they need more.

The best way to find something is to strike on Zarkon's weak point: his partners and assistants. Zarkon could not have done everything alone, and if they manage to find who had helped him every step of the way, they might actually win this.

Allura's plan, as crazy as it sounds, is to create a team of thieves and use them to steal five diamonds that have been distributed to the most trusted of Zarkon's advisors. With the distraction given by the theft, they could sneak out any sensible information without attracting too much attention to their investigation.

It sounds impossible, like something out of a movie, but Shiro had promised to help.

So he does.

 

 

The team they create is a strange mix-match of personalities. There is Keith, who moves as quietly as a cat and seems to think that stealing is his life's goal; Lance, a conman who is famous in the business for using his cons to play the modern version of robin hood, conning the ritch to give to who was less fortunate, especially the neighbor of his youth;  then there was Hunk, Lance's helper and a good hacker.

Shiro is supposed to be the mastermind, with his tactical training and combat experience. Allura, surprisingly, is the muscles.

"Are you sure?" Lance says, with a grin and a condescending smile. Allura has him on his back in three seconds flat, with a technique that isabsolutely flawless.

They don't tell them the real motivesbehind the job. They tell them they want to steal these diamonds and that they are going to split the money with them, and it seems to be enough.

 

 

The first job is a disaster.

Everyone is extremely capable in their role, that's not the problem; what they lack is that they don't work as a team. There is no coordination in their movements, even when Shiro tries to make them follow his orders, they are still completely out of synch.

They still manage to steal the Yellow Bayard, and Allura manages to find a trail of breadcrumbs that seems to be leading them in the right direction, but he knows this has been pure dumb luck.

If they don't learn how to work together, as members of the same team, this plan is doomed to fail.

 

 

Shiro tries then. He makes more mandatory meetings that devolve into dinner sessions. He organizes smaller jobs, all targeting corrupted people in corporate business. He forces them to be together and work together and learn together.

The prolonged exposure seems to have the intended effect, and their three thieves start finally working together.

In the end, the one who's hardest to convince is Allura herself, who still keeps the rest of the team at a distance and seems comfortable talking with only Shiro one on one.

"We're using them," Allura reminds him, one day, "You can't get attached. They are criminals."

He looks at her and deadpans, "We are too."

And it's true, because there is no way to go back. The Yellow Bayard sits in a safe that Hunk has set up for them, under so many security protocols that no one will be able to trace them to the jewel. They have stolen something and they will steal again.

She doesn't have anything to say.

 

 

Katie appears when Shiro is organizing the job to steal the Green Bayard. Allura found some useful information on Haxus, the advisor that holds it in his house, and they need to strike quickly.

He's shocked to open the door to his shitty apartment, one night, and see Katie Holt that looks at him and says, "I want in." Shiro stays frozen, at the door, taken by surprise and when he asks how she knows, she huffs.

"It wasn’t that difficult. You left a trail, with the safe. I erased it, you’re welcome. I think you need more of an hacker and less of an engineer for that." She's not wrong, and as much as Hunk likes computer, he admits he's better at building things and making new improved gadgets than hacking.

Shiro tries to convince her to stay away from this, but she's stubborn, almost as much as her brother was.

She decides to go by Pidge and that's that.

 

 

They steal the Green Bayard and it goes off without a glitch.

The team works flawlessly together, Hunk builds them new earpieces that make communications faster and clearer. Pidge fits right in and she snarks back and forth with Lance since day one.

Allura managed to find what _they_ need for their plan and it looks almost too good to be true.

Shiro hasn't had an easy life after the 'accident'. He had closed himself off to anything and everything, and throwing himself so passionately into a project feels weird, but he also enjoys it.

He spends as much time as he can planning, studying and trying to build up the team. Pidge starts helping him, sometimes, and for some strange reason Lance comes with her, and with Lance comes Hunk. Soon the four of them have movie nights almost every night, and Shiro doesn't really know how that happened.

Allura and Keith are more skittish, always orbiting on the edge of the team, but never actually joining.

He understands Allura's reservation, but Keith is another story.

Shiro doesn't know much about him, had let Allura decide the members of this little ragtag gang, but he can't help but notice, sometimes, that Keith looked at them like someone who doesn’t know how to act, but wants to understand.

He tries to spend time with Keith, then, just the two of them. He tries to involve Keith into some actual planning for the heist, since Keith has a lot of experience from working solo; he asks him to stay for movie nights and makes him sit beside Shiro on the couch.

At one point Keith looks at him and asks, angry, "Why are you doing this?"

Shiro doesn't actually have an answer, at least not one he's ready to give. How pathetic would he be if he admitted in front of a thief that these are the healthier relationship he has had since the accident? On the other hand, he doesn't want to use some bullshit phrase like 'I'm doing it for the good of the team' because it would feel cruel.

"I think we have a lot in common," he settles for, in the end, "I recognize someone who's lonely."

Keith doesn't say anything after that. He just nods and looks away, but that night Shiro doesn't even have to convince Keith to go to movie night.

 

 

Shiro doesn't manage to bring Allura in but, surprisingly, Lance does. One day Allura is as far from them as ever, the next she's seated beside Lance during movie night and laughing.

He can't say he's not pleased, but the sudden change confuses him.

"You've changed your mind?" He asks her, the next morning.

She looks at him with a tired smile, something that looks a little guilty and a little ashamed. "You said it yourself," she says in the end, looking at the team, "we're criminals too now."

 

 

When they steal the Blue Bayard, from the house of one of Zarkon's top executioners, Sendak, Allura finds a name.

_Thace_.

It's the name of someone who had tried to tell the truth but had been silenced swiftly and with cruelty. His death is a problem, since they can't ask him what they need, but Pidge finds a way to hack into the guy's computer and finds the file they are looking for.

Thace had managed to find enough evidence to have proof that the original formula had been tampered with, but nothing that ties the tampering to Zarkon. Still, it's a lead, and something big.

The next job, the one that will lead them to steal the Red Bayard, will also get them to Haggar, Zarkon's partner in business nowadays and once one of  the lead scientists at Altea Corp. Allura is sure she was the one that tampered with the formula, and the only one who probably holds all the keys in her hands. She’s the ticket they need to finally unravel the mystery.

The moment it becomes clear that they need to talk to Haggar to find the final piece to nail Zarkon, they realize that there is no way to keep this hidden from the rest of the team. The time of their subterfuges has come to an end.

How would they explain the need to kidnap one of their targets?

"I think we can trust them," Pidge says, looking at her screen.

Honestly? Shiro believes so too.

There had been reasons, in the beginning, for the secrecy. It had been a dangerous road, and they hadn't been sure of who they could trust; the team had been a bunch of strangers then, and Shiro hadn't really believed they would find anything.

Now, lying feels like a burden. Shiro knows they can trust the other three, knows they are probably going to be angry, but will understand once they know what was at risk.

They are thieves. They have to.

 

 

The one that takes the revelation the worst out of the three it's, unsurprisingly, Keith.

Lance and Hunk digest the new information with grace, asking some questions and showing an understanding that makes them seem professionals.

Keith storms out of their meeting place like a three year old.

Everyone stays frozen, looking at the door, and wondering what to do. Keith has been getting closer to the team, slowly but surely, but he had still been a little skittish. A loner, in Pidge terms.

When he manages to look away from the door, he notices the rest of the team is looking at him expectantly. Shiro could pretend, and ask why are they looking at him, but he knows.

Out of everyone he and Keith have been bonding the most. Planning the heists and talking about their lives. He knows he has to be the one to go and talk to Keith, it doesn't mean he likes the idea.

Shiro cares about Keith, however, and beside everything else he's genuinely sorry they hurt him with their omissions.

"I'm going to fix it," he tells them, then. They smile and let him go.

 

 

He isn't entirely sure where to find Keith, so he takes a stab in the dark and goes to that one gym Keith had once mentioned in passing. They had been talking about the last heist and Shiro had complimented Keith, who had kicked a security guy in the face—Shiro hadn't seen it, but he had been told it had been impressive—and Keith had just shrugged and said that he trains at a  
gym.

Keith had looked shocked, after the revelation, almost as if the fact that he had given an information about himself in such a frivolous way had scared him. Shiro had decided not to push.

He's glad now, though, that Keith had let this one information slip by, because when he enters the gym he finds Keith there, training on some floor routines.

Shiro advances slowly and he knows Keith had noticed him—the slight shift in Keith's posture when Shiro had entered the door had been telling —but the other doesn't acknowledge him.

He gets close enough that Keith could punch him, if he really wanted, but Keith keeps pretending he doesn't exist.

"Keith..." he tries, because he's still hoping they can resolve this like adults. He knows it's not going to happen.

"Go away, Shiro. I have nothing to say to you," Keith says, and his voice tastes like metal. Sharp and lethal.

Shiro has seen death in the face, however, and lost an arm to prove it. He's not easily scared. "I have something to say to you, I just want you to listen."

Keith finally stops exercising and looks at him, his face the epitome of fury. "Why? So you can try and... and _con_ me into continuing the job? Into trusting you? Into... into..." he stops, then, but he has already tipped his hands.

Shiro has never been stupid, and while his people skill leave a lot to be desired, lately, he had been good at this once. He had been a leader, had been someone always in control of the situation, who read other people and gave them what they wanted.

He knows what Keith wants, what he thinks Shiro took away with the admission of their ulterior plans. Keith had trusted Shiro, had started to think that maybe he had found a place he belonged to.

Now, he feels betrayed.

Unfortunately there isn’t an easy fix for something like this; there isn’t any way for Shiro to regain Keith’s trust completely.

"We didn't want to hurt you. Any of you. Whatever our motives were, for the job, I never lied to you," Shiro promises. He sees the way Keith gets ready to reply, fire igniting in his eye, so he holds up his arm to stop him. "When it was the two of us. I never lied. When we started this, you  
guys were strangers to us and this? This was too big to reveal immediately."

it still feels too big, like something that can explode in their hands at any given moment, but the three thieves that have walked into Shiro's life have now become important enough that he needs them on his side.

He wants to protect them, of course, but he trusts them enough to protect themselves.

"I don't know what will happen when this job ends. I just know that I was serious when I said we have a lot in common. This team? It's good. You can do good. If something happens to me I've been... hoping you could take my place."

Keith looks shocked at the admission, and enraged all the same. "Nothing is going to happen to you."

Shiro smiles at him and doesn't say anything, but it seems his words had the desired effect on Keith. He looks more relaxed now, without his fear holding him back.

Shiro hesitates a second before reaching with his hand and taking Keith's in it. "I was in a bad place before this. Allura and this crazy plan helped but... I found a family. I found something more...."

He doesn't say anything else, because this is not the time. Shiro likes Keith, possibly, if he let himself explore the possibility, he would even learn to love Keith. But this is a job, and as much as he wants to do something now, Shiro has to be professional.

Had there been something less important at stake Shiro could have said fuck it and show exactly how much  Keith meant to him.

Instead he just grips his hand tighter and hopes it shows.

 

 

Before they go in to steal the Red Bayard, Keith looks at him and tells him, "I'm doing this for you."

Shiro is left in the van, pleased and shocked beyond words. The warmth in his chest, for once, not caused by alcohol.

He stays in the van, like all the other times, and coordinates them as best as he can and tries not to think about Keith's intense gaze.

An hour later they return and Haggar is with them.

 

 

They make sure they never reveal their faces to her, but making her talk seems to be an impossible task.

Shiro can't enter in the room with her, even if he wants to, because his missing arm makes him too recognizable.

"Let me do it," Pidge says, one day. She looks hard as steel, and just as angry. Her eyes are haunted, filled with anger.

She's too young, Shiro thinks, to be this way.

They want to protest, but she shuts them all up with a single look. The words he had said to Allura, a long time ago, ring now ominously in his ears: "We're criminals too, now."

When Pidge returns she says she knows where to look.

 

 

After that they start planning the final part of this long nightmare.

Pidge manages to hack and retrieve the files Haggar had talked about, and the only thing left to do is plant the evidence in Zarkon's house and steal the Black Bayard, as to attract the police to Zarkon's house.

"And after this?" Lance asks, when Shiro explains to them the plan. The question surprises everyone, even if it's something they were all thinking about. Shiro looks over at  
Allura, unsure on how to respond.

He knows she doesn't plan on sticking around, even if her and Lance had a strange relationship. And Shiro...

"Let's do this first," Keith says, surprising everyone, "and then we'll see."

Shiro smiles at him, and tries to mean it.

 

 

The plan goes like this: Lance has been working at Zarkon’s house as one of the staff, and he has written down all of the security shifts, and the added security measures added; Hunk has been building little bugs that Lance had disseminated around the house so that they can have visual on the rooms. Keith and Allura will be the ones to go in. Keith to steal the Black Bayard, Allura to plant the evidence.

It's simple, but they don't need much more than that.

This time everyone but Keith and Allura will stay in the van with Shiro, and Keith is the first to leave.

He looks back at Shiro before going, and he smiles. Something shy and personal, a gift. Shiro thinks he turned out to be an incredible thief if he had actually managed to steal that.

After Keith goes, Shiro and Allura exit the van, saying they have something to talk about.

Allura has the little USB in her hand and she looks at Shiro, wavering for the first time since they came up with the plan in that seedy bar.

"Are you sure?" she asks, and he quickly nods .

"You have a business to run. Also... it will be better if it comes from me," he says, even though Allura already knows. These are the same motivations Allura had given him that first day, and they were as logical then as they are now.

It doesn't make this solution any better.

"It will be fine. We were good. They don't have proof to tie me to any of the other crime scenes. I was never there." There are no prints, no DNA matches, nothing that can tie Shiro to the other thefst.

In the end, this is a good plan.

"I'm sorry," Allura says anyway and Shiro smiles at her.

"I know," he reassures her. "Tell the others they did good. And tell Keith... tell him I'm sorry,"

He takes the USB from Allura's hands and smiles, running towards the house. He doesn't have an ear piece, has to trust his team to follow the plan. Even when he breaks in Zarkon's study, even when he pretends to download something from Zarkon's computer.

Even when he pretends to be surprised when the cops find him.

 

 

(He doesn't hear, because he doesn't have the earpiece, how much Keith fights to go and help him. He doesn't hearKeith yell at Allura because she had used them, she had used Shiro.

He doesn't hear Keith throwing the Black Bayard at Allura's head and say that he didn't need that piece junk. That it wasn't worth the cost.

He doesn't hear Allura explain the plan, while Pidge stays silent.

Shiro doesn't hear any of that.)

 

◆

 

 

"You find any of this funny?" the detective asks, furrowing his brow. So Shiro shrugs.

"I have nothing to do with this Bayard business," he explains, "I just used the excuse. I knew everyone would be monitoring the jewel and it would have been my chance."

"Your chance for what?" the detective asks, curious now.

Shiro has him exactly where he wants him.

"I want to negotiate some of my time for information on the Altea Disaster," he says, with a smirk, "trust me. It's an interesting story."

 

 

In the end, he gets 3 years. There is nothing to tie him to the Bayard case, as it is called, and his information help arrest Zarkon once and for all.

Prison is dull, and no one of the team comes to visits him—he knows they can't, that it would put everything in jeopardy, but that doesn't make him feel less lonely.

The years pass by slowly, but they pass, and soon Shiro is being released.

 

 

The air outside is fresh, more crisp than he remembers, but, most importantly, there is a car parked right in front of the exit.

Keith is leaning on it, looking at Shiro with an unreadable expression. The years have been good to Keith, who looks more put together now, and less like a caged animal ready to bite. He looks settled and it shows in the relaxed slope of his shoulders, in the controlled and firmness of his gaze.

Still, Shiro isn't sure of what to say, let alone what Keith is even doing here.

It's Keith who talks first, in the end. "You're an asshole," he says, low and dangerous. His voice sounds even better than Shiro remembers and he can't help but laugh. It has been so long, and  in his time in prison he had wondered about Keith most of all.

They had left things at an awkward stage, an impossible moment between the start of something and just in the middle of a terrible disaster. Shiro’s entire life feels that way, most of the time.

Keith smiles then, something playful and private, "There is a team, thankfully, something I've been managing for the past three years that it's looking for an asshole to work with. You think you might be interested?"

Shiro smiles and fixes his bag more firmly upon his shoulder. "I think," he says carefully, advancing until he's close to Keith, "that I can be convinced."

The pleased glint in Keith's eyes, is everything Shiro needs.

 

**Author's Note:**

> As always comments and kudos go a long way into making me a happy writer and they mean the world to me.
> 
> You can scream at me on twitter as chiapslock and tumblr as fatty-arbuckle.
> 
> Thank you so much <3


End file.
